Over the last 5 months that we have lived in Iowa, we have seen a lot of things, none bigger than the Iowa State Fair pig champion named Captain.  Captain, tipped the scales at 1254 pounds!  He was huge.  Pigs are a big thing in Iowa, they raise more pigs (22.7 million) than any other state (2^ndplace is NC with 8.6 million). In Iowa that means pigs outnumber people 7-1.  On my (Mark) many drives around Iowa I have seen many pig farms and also many of the 3 million plus people that call this great state home. 

2 Cor 5-18-20
All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation;  that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.  Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

Potential new places for ministry with Young Life:
We have been praying that God would connect us with people that love Him and love students so that we can begin to establish new Young Life areas in Iowa and Illinois.  Some of the cities we are currently praying for are Ft. Dodge, Cedar Falls, Decatur, Springfield, Pella, Moline, and Bettendorf. Please join us in prayer for these cities!

YoungLives Update:
I (Liz) have been meeting with people over the past few months and sharing the vision for YoungLives. I’ve been taking a Field Leadership Training course for YoungLives along with other YoungLives Coordinators and learning a lot in preparation for this role.  I will be starting a prayer team in January with a group of women as we seek God’s guidance in reaching out to teen moms in Des Moines. 

We are thankful that Jaden and Josiah are continuing to adjust well to our new home.  This month has been fun re-introducing them to some American Christmas traditions again.  We are truly grateful for each of you in our lives and the friendships that you represent. Merry Christmas!

Items for prayer:
Family: Praising God for how well all 4 of us have transitioned so far.  Please continue too pray as we seek to build friendships and relationships with those around us. 

Potential new places for ministry with Young Life:
Please join us as we pray for God to move in these cities to establish Young Life:  Ft. Dodge, Cedar Falls, Decatur, Springfield, Pella, Moline, and Bettendorf. Please join us in prayer for these cities!

YoungLives: Pray for God to stir women’s hearts towards mentoring teen moms.  Provide avenues for us to meet with teen moms.  That God would already begin softening hearts of teen moms towards Himself.

A little over 3 months ago we stepped off the airplane in Chicago and began a new adventure!  Even though we had been back to the US each of the 4 summers that we lived in Kenya, this felt different. This was the start of a something new.

We have new contact info!
Mark cell: 515-336-4749 & marksisler4@gmail.com
Liz cell: 515-443-2938 & lizsisler2@gmail.com

Its amazing the feelings and emotions that you go through as you try to think through starting life over 8000 miles away from where you currently live.

Ever since God began to show us His direction for this change, our family started to pray about all the unknowns.  We prayed for all of the details in moving our family, all the different transitions and logistics, even  the extra bags that would need to be taken back with us! We laid before the Lord our boys and prayed for new friendships, we prayed that God would graciously bring kids into their lives so that they would feel welcome in their new home.  We prayed that Liz and I would make new friends, that we would be known in Des Moines. We asked God for His guidance and direction with all the unknown decisions that faced us.

We want to share that God in His infinite kindness, answered each of our prayers in some unique way.  We want to share some of them here.

We had been praying for God to lead us to a new church:

Friends of ours in Kenya used to be on staff at Valley church in West Des Moines.  This church would send out teams to Kenya in past years to help lead a women’s conference for missionary women.  They sent a team in May for one of these trips.   When this church heard that we were moving to the area (Des Moines) they offered to take back our extra bags (saving us a lot of money).    We also had the privilege of meeting some of their team while we were still living in Kenya.  This gave us an immediate connection to a few people as well as this church.  We went from being completely unknown to this new city, to having a few familiar faces.  Both Jaden and Josiah had a midweek morning program at Valley church for their ages that they attended the week we moved.  Jaden made some instant connections and asked if this could be our new church.  Coming in as a 7^th grader, his reaction was indeed an answer to prayer. This was the final nudging that God gave us that this was the church he was leading us to.

We had prayed for new friends, and to be known:
In our first week in Iowa, a family invited us out for lunch after church to a brick oven pizza restaurant. For those of you that don’t know we love pizza, and we had just said goodbye to our own brick oven that we had used so many times in Kenya to provide pizza for so many.  A few days later a family we had just met invited us to their house for “outdoor pizza”.  When we showed up we walked around back to see a brick oven getting fired up!  Liz and I both sensed Gods humor in using pizza to show us that he was helping us to be known.  This was just the beginning of God using our new church to help us to feel welcome and cared for.

We had prayed for new friends for Jaden & Josiah:  After a few days of moving in we discovered some neighborhood kids that were similar in age to our boys.  Within a few weeks our boys were making new friends and getting invited to a birthday party and getting together with kids their age from church.  We kept reminding them that God was answering our prayers in very clear ways! They have also adjusted well to their new school, Des Moines Christian School, for which we are extremely thankful!

We were pleasantly surprised to find so much green space, creeks, and bike paths around our new home. God’s beauty is everywhere, we just have to look for it!

These are just a few examples of Gods faithfulness to our family.  We have been so grateful for all of your prayers for our family as we have begun to settle in to live here in Iowa.

Mark presenting to some of the Young Life staff in the region.

The last month I (Mark) have begun to travel all over Iowa to survey the current Young Life areas and pray that God would reveal to me His plans for new areas in the years ahead.  I have met most of the Young Life staff in our region and went on a fall retreat with them a few weeks ago.  I have put over 3000 miles on my car going to “the ends” of Iowa since Aug 1.  It has been a blessing to begin ministry here start the process of reaching more students for Christ.

Praising God for His faithfulness and kindness to our family through these past 4 months of transition.

Please continue to pray for Gods leading as we seek His direction and leading for the ministry He has called us to.

What is YoungLives?
More than 20 years ago, Young Life answered God’s call to run headfirst into the chaos of teenage motherhood with the hope of Jesus … and YoungLives was born.

YoungLives vision: To reach teen moms by entering their world, modeling the unconditional love of Christ, and encouraging them to become the women and mothers God created them to be. Through Young Life’s time-tested methods and life-on-life mentoring, teen moms are empowered to make positive choices, set and achieve goals, and live a future rooted in Christ.

Liz’s role:
YoungLives of Des Moines Coordinator

Liz will be building and training a team of women to be leaders and mentors to teenage moms.  Through the mentor relationships during the week and monthly “Club” time the teen moms will be able to experience the care and love of Christ. 

On April 13, we had the opportunity to visit Chicago’s Northside YoungLives Club.  The above picture represents a room full of loving adults and teen moms and their babies all from different backgrounds and stories. YoungLives brings them together once a month to share a meal, play games, and so much more, all so these girls can learn about Jesus.

Please pray for our family, that we would finish our time in Kenya well and that we would have wisdom for all the decisions coming up as we begin our transition.

During the summer before my junior year of high school I (Mark) was challenged by my youth pastor, on the stairs of the Wheaton College football stadium, to prayerfully consider if God was calling me into a life of  student discipleship for my future.  After a few weeks of prayer, I felt God’s leading towards student ministry. This call led to a 9 month stint at Christ Home for Children, a year and a half at Gull Lake Bible Conference, 13 years at Western Springs Baptist Church, 4 years in Kenya, and now our next position with Young Life.

Liz and I have felt it has been a privilege to represent Christ to students in these past roles and look forward to our next opportunity that God is directing us to in Iowa.  We want to use this newsletter to share what my role will be with Young Life. 

Here are some definitions that might be helpful in understanding our new roles.

Young Life:  Young Life is a global parachuch ministry that seeks to reach non-churched non-Christian students with the Gospel.  When I was a youth pastor, we did a pretty good job of reaching non-Christian churched students but we were not as good at reaching students that did not attend church.  Young Life is designed and focused towards sharing the gospel with students that are disinterested in spiritual things.

Young Life’s purpose: To introduce adolescents to Jesus Christ and help them grow in their faith.

Heartland Region:  The heartland region is made up of all of Iowa and all of Illinois, outside of the Chicago suburbs.  I will be working with Dave Goy who is the Regional Director for the Heartland Region. Dave used to be the Area Director for the Lyons Township Area (his office was across the street from the church I used to be a youth pastor at).

Area Director:  An area director is a youth professional that leads weekly youth meetings in local homes in order to share the gospel.  They function in many ways similar to a youth pastor as they build a team of volunteers that will help them to reach students for Christ.  An area normally is connected to a local high school and starts with a ministry to high school students.  As the area grows the ministry will often expand to Jr. High as well.   Depending on the demographics of the area Capernaum (ministry to special needs students) and YoungLives (ministry to teenage moms) can also be started in the area.

Mark’s position with Young Life:
I will be the Regional Initiatives Coordinator for Iowa.

My 3 main objectives will be:

1. To develop new Young Life areas throughout the state of Iowa:
Since Young Life began in 1941, Iowa has been an underdeveloped state for Young Life compared to other states. One of my objectives is to help develop new areas and then to mentor and disciple new Area Directors in order to reach more students for Jesus Christ.  I am very excited about the opportunity to bring the gospel to students in new towns throughout Iowa and also to help develop the next generation of youth leaders that will reach students for the cause of Christ.

2. To Form relationships with churches and Young Life:
Young Life has begun to forge partnerships/collaborations with churches in order to bring more effective youth ministry to places that may not be able to afford a full time youth professional.  For over seventy years Young Life has been involved in specialized ministry to adolescents. The partnership is a way to link Young Life’s expertise and a local congregation’s resources together. The institutional church needs the enthusiasm and skills Young Life brings to youth ministry. Young Life needs the stability and ongoing sense of community that the church offers to young people.  I will be helping to develop these new church partnerships as well as mentoring the youth leaders that will be serving both in the church and in their community.

3. To help make discipleship a priority in the lives of the staff, leaders and students in the Heartland Region:
Over the years Young Life has done a tremendous job of reaching students with the gospel but they have at times struggled to really disciple these students that have come to faith.  In recent years there has been a new emphasis within Young Life to put more time and energy into the discipleship process.  My role is to help raise the level of discipleship in the lives of the Young Life staff members in our region as well as helping them to strategize how to best disciple their leaders and students. This will be more of a pastoral role as I seek to help leaders grow in their faith so that they will in turn disciple students that will become mature believers that are growing in their faith and assimilated into a local church.

Please pray for our family, that we would finish our time in Kenya well and that we would have wisdom for all the decisions coming up soon as we begin our transition.